Friday, July 2, 2010

Pacific Northwest Road Trip - Day 14



Today we took a trip into Arches National Park. Since we were staying in Moab (UT) we were only a couple of minutes from the park entrance. We started driving into the park and stopped right at the beginning at a point where you had a great look at the Moab Fault. We then continued driving through the park. And the same thing as in Glacier National Park was happening. You see one absolutely great view and you turn around to find an even more amazing view. We got to see lots of absolutely amazing rock formations. You just have to see these in person as there are no words to adequately describe them.

Our next stop was a point called Courthouse Towers. An absolutely stunning rock formation. As always Harry and I took lots of pix and video. Next up was a stop at the Petrified Sand Dunes. As the name suggests it's a rock formation that looks like sand dunes frozen in stone.

Up next was the Balanced Rock. This formation features a large rock being balanced on a very small surface. It's incredible how it sits there right on top and not falling over. We stopped at a formation called the Garden of Eden.

Next up was our first real arch. This feature is called Windows. I walked up and took quite lots of video. I got also to take same video of the second arch of the Windows arch feature. Since we had the dog we had to take turns going on the path and checking out the three arches. Harry took the video and I took photos. We got to see the North and South Arch and what they call The Turret Arch.. all of them were amazing.

Next up was an overview point from where you have a very good overlook over the 'Salt Valley'.
Then we checked out the "Delicate Arch". I walked up first and checked out the lower and the upper view point. Turns out that it doesn't really matter which view point you choose, you pretty much have the same view and man it's a long walk up to the second higher view point. I saved Harry from doing it. The only way to get a really good look of that arch, would be to take the 3 mile long hike to the arch, which we couldn't do since we had Daisy with us.

Next up was "Fiery Furnace", again this is something that needs to be viewed in person as it's so hard to describe it's beauty. The next stop was an arch called "Skylight Arch". It's another cool looking arch.

Once we were done with that, we drove to "Devils Garden", were the road ends. We took pix and video, but couldn't go up to any of the features since that would have been a longer hike and since dogs are not allowed on trails that wasn't an option. So we didn't see Landscape Arch and a couple of other arches.

All in all it was a great day.. it amazes me how Glacier National Park was so beautiful with it's waterfalls, lakes and green everywhere. And Arches was just as beautiful with it's rock, dirt and brown everywhere.

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